The present invention relates to expandable and collapsible structures and, more particularly, to expandable and collapsible structures including rollers.
My prior U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,141,934, 5,651,228, 5,444,946, 5,274,980, 5,230,196, RE33,710, 4,970,841, 4,838,003, 4,800,663, 4,761,929, 4,747,239, 4,689,932, 4,666,102, 4,637,180, 4,579,066, 4,561,618, 4,522,008, 4,512,097, 4,473,986, 4,437,275, 4,334,660, 4,290,244, 4,280,521, 4,026,313, and 3,968,808 are incorporated by reference and show various collapsible structures and components therefor. These structures are generally intended for uses such as shelters and display and are typically designed to support loads comprising covers and other miscellaneous items, and are also typically designed for flexibility to accommodate outside forces such as wind.
It is desirable to provide expandable and collapsible structures that can support substantial loads while also remaining substantially rigid under a variety of conditions. Such structures can be particularly useful in supporting or conveying heavy loads, such as for purposes of conveying a human on a body board through a series of decontamination stations. My U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/709,786, entitled EXPANDABLE AND COLLAPSIBLE MODULAR STRUCTURE, filed May 27, 2004, is incorporated by reference and discloses one such structure. U.S. Pat. No. 6,729,460 is incorporated by reference and discloses a rapid deploy roller transfer device that is rather complex in construction and may not be capable of supporting substantial loads. It is desirable to provide expandable and collapsible structures that can support substantial loads while also remaining substantially rigid under a variety of conditions and that are simple to construct and have relatively few components.
In accordance with one aspect of the present invention, an expandable and collapsible structure includes a plurality of roller supports, each roller support including at least two ends separated by a non-zero distance and at least one roller disposed at one of the at least two ends of the roller support, and at least one folding assembly disposed between two of the plurality of roller supports.